Neil Young cohorts perform at second annual Bunbury Music Fest this Friday

Everest is an Indie Rock band unique in a cluttered
genre. The group has been able to work with many major players — most
notable is the band's relationship with Neil Young, whose recording
studio produced their first studio album. Young has had the band to open
for him many times over the last several years. Last year, Everest
released its third studio album, Ownerless, which came out on Dave Matthews' ATO label.

CityBeat spoke with bassist Elijah Thomson about
the group's unique vision and feel and also where he feels the band is
going in their evolution. Everest will be playing the Bunbury Music
Festival at Cincinnati's Sawyer Point/Yeatman's Cove on Friday alongside
fun., Walk the Moon, Devotchka, Tegan and Sara and many others. Everest
plays the Bud Light Stage at 5 p.m. Friday.

CityBeat: What have you guys been up to since I saw you last summer at Forecastle in Louisville?

Elijah Thomson: We took a little break. We were
touring with Neil Young at the end of the year, which was really fun. We
were a little beat down from a year of touring. We took probably about
six months off. We did a little tour in April with Minus the Bear, so we
sort of violated our own hiatus to go out with those guys, but that was
better. We just did a couple weeks' run from L.A. to Chicago, so we
went out there to do a couple dates.

CB: I know Neil Young personally picked you
guys to go on tour with him and open his shows. What was the highlight
of playing with him?

ET: It has been pretty sweet over the years getting
to tour with Neil and obviously a total honor to be able to play with
an artist of that caliber and a living legend, as far as I am concerned.

On a certain level, it is still a gig — you know, driving
and loading in and out and all that kind of stuff. I think for me
personally, watching a guy like Neil night in and night out, it sort of
proves that sort of mystical thing in music, what is compelling about
somebody that can sustain them for so long.

People are coming out in droves to see Neil and for me it
is a personal study on art and what it is that enamors people with art.
With Neil, I think it is primarily an honesty with his art. He will put
it out there. The first song on his new record is like 27 minutes long.
That’s the kind of bravery that comes from having nothing to prove and I
think for them, like us, we have to understand why that is important
and to find a formula that works, but also (be) true to ourselves and
true to our own desires musically. That is a process. It has not been
instantaneous, but I think we are sort of on the verge of realizing that
ourselves.

CB: Did Neil give you any advice?

ET: I think if there ever was, it was just (to)
absolutely do whatever you want and don’t make any apologies and don’t
play it safe. It was the kind of real world wisdom that is important. It
is not about playing some game. We should not be concerned where we
will be classified in a musical genre. It is more about making what you
feel and letting other people classify it.

CB: You guys toured pretty consistently the past few years. Do you have any crazy tour stories on the road?

ET: One of the main things we talked about from
last year, we seemed to be pretty slippery when it came to crossing
paths with law enforcement. We were slippery, we had no issues. I don’t
know how we did it. We had a couple close calls, but were able to talk
our way out of it every time.

CB: Are you working on any new music right now?

ET: Yeah, the biggest change in Everest is a slight
personnel change. Jason Soda, a founding member of the band, decided to
resign. I don’t know if I should say why, but ultimately he needed more
normalcies in his life.

His replacement — I hate to put it that way — his name is
Aaron Tasjan, an amazing guitar player who we met while we were on the
road with Alberta Cross. He was kind of filling in for guitar and when
it came up that J was going to resign, Joel and I were talking about it.

I think it was a sensitive thing — who were we going to
collaborate with and how were we going to take this opportunity to
improve the internal chemistry? We had a really great rapport with Aaron
and when we were on the road he watched our set every night. He would
open the shows doing solo stuff and we would jump on stage with him and
jam with him. His spirit has been really amazing since he has been
playing with us, bringing a freshness and newness that we have really
desired and I think interpersonally it has been good and natural.

Also, the drummer chair has been in rotation the last year
and a half or so since Davey, our original drummer, stopped playing
with us. Our drummer now is a guy named Dan Bailey, a guy I have known
for years. I really respected his drumming. He is an absolutely
astounding drummer. It was very easy to ask him to join. Bass players
and drummers generally want to choose who they are going to play with.
He has known this band for a while, since I have been in it, and he has
been chomping at the bit to jam with us, so we are on this new plane
that we have never really experienced. It is really sort of a beautiful
and fun creative discovery.

I am excited to bring this to Cincinnati. There is a great
spirit going on. The plan right now is to finish out this summer
touring, a couple weeks in July and a couple weeks in August on the West
Coast. Then we are going to go back in the studio. The sound checks for
our shows have gone into much more depth with the music; I don’t like
the word "jamming," so we will say "spontaneous musical landscapes." It
is something we have been wanting to do for a long time and it is really
amazing to go on stage and just not have it all pre-programmed, even
calling out set lists on the stage, stretching songs out, kind of taking
our time with things, letting things be different night after night and
really encourage our creative flow together. We are really excited
about getting in the studio and experimenting with this.

CB: What is your favorite bass to play?

ET: I play a Gibson Les Paul Recording bass (from)
1973. I have been playing it exclusively for about 12 years. I do own
several basses. The first bass I ever had was a Gibson Les Paul
Recording bass. My Dad was a bass player and he gave it to me. It was
kind of his junker bass and I didn’t even like it but it was something.

It sounds really stupid and mystical, because it was the
bass I learned on and I kind of wore it out and it was an awkward bass,
but I was always coming back to it because it was familiar.

I was playing with a guy named Richard Swift (producer,
singer/songwriter and current member of The Shins), still do, a really
dear friend. Right around when we first started playing together, he
said, “That is the raddest bass I have ever heard. You should only use
that bass when you are playing with me.” I was like, “OK no problem.” I
basically decided that was my thing and I was going to stick with it.

I haven’t played any other bass for years and years except in a studio, and even then it is only one song, maybe.

CB: Did you always want to be a musician?

ET: Like I said, my dad was a musician and so I
grew up on the road and around music. My uncle owned a studio, still
does, and we still work out of there a lot. I have been recording bands
since I was 17 years old and have been playing music since I was 12
years old, always had guitars around. When I was a little kid I thought I
was the talentless one in the family because I didn’t pick it up before
the age of 10. I eventually found my way. This was always what I was
meant to do, in a way.

CB: Somebody the other day said that the best way to become a successful musician is to not have a backup plan.

ET: I’d say so, and I’d say most true artists would
rather downgrade and live in a shack and still be doing what they are
passionate about. It really plays into the artist mentality. I am no
spring chicken, so I certainly decided I was in for life. I don’t have a
retirement plan. I don’t ever want to stop. This is what I do. I get
into other things outside of music so it is not a total obsession. I
found a way to make it this far. I don’t know why that would change in
the future. If it does, it does, and I will figure it out. This is what
works for me; there is no backup plan.

CB: Where did the band name come from?

ET: The story … I wasn’t in the band when they
named it and maybe I wouldn’t have picked that name, but that is for
another conversation.

From what I gather, Russ and Jason had named their studio
Everest Recordings because of a pack of cigarettes that Geoff Emerick
had. He was an engineer on a lot of the Beatles stuff and supposedly
Abbey Road was originally going to be named Everest and they were going
to do a photo shoot in Nepal. It became a logistical nightmare and, as
the legend goes, Paul or somebody said, "Let’s shoot a picture out front
and be done with it." So the name Everest has significance to them,
however it is sort of a common thing for something to be named.

It is hard to Google something like that. That is
something you have to think about nowadays and maybe it gets lost in the
shuffle a little bit.

CB: What can the fans look forward to at Bunbury seeing you guys for the first time?

ET: As a band we are really relaxed and
comfortable. Every new show is an adventure. Every show we have had with
this lineup has been over the top amazing.

I guess what fans can expect is the unexpected. They can
expect to see some sort of fine but not some self-congratulatory
musicianship, people making themselves vulnerable in front of people and
making up stuff on the spot and really trying to live in that spirit of
Jimi Hendrix and Zeppelin and the kind of feelings those shows had when it
was a beautiful thing of stream of consciousness. I think that is
something rarer these days in music. I am happy and proud to be in a
band that values that part of live performance.

Local indie rockers unveil "Honeybee" single from forthcoming EP just in time for Bunbury

Impressive Cincinnati AltRock trio Public is all set to performing at Cincinnati's huge Bunbury Music Festival this weekend, essentially opening the fest Friday at 2 p.m. with a performance on the Bud Light Stage.

The band — nominated at the most recent Cincinnati Entertainment Awards for "Best New Artist" — released its four-track EP, Red, last summer and is now offering fans a brand-new recording, just in time to learn all the words and sing along at tomorrow's fest appearance.

The new track is "Honeybee," a spacious, groove-driven Indie Pop gem which is slated for Public's forthcoming second EP.

If you're download phobic, you can also grab
a physical copy of the single. Fifty are being pressed, featuring
hand-drawn artwork and a bonus acoustic B-side, "I Need You," and made
available at Bunbury.

Both songs will be available for download on July 16. The stream and eventual download will be available at publictheband.com.

Editor's Note: Brian Penick of local music promotions company The Counter Rhythm Group is guest blogging for CityBeat monthly to provide a behind-the-scenes look at his journey to release his interactive industry guidebook,Musicians’ Desk Reference.

We are very much in the trenches right now! Keeping afloat amongst a sea of deadlines is a feat in and of itself. And while we typically do not doubt ourselves here at The Counter Rhythm Group, we are quite impressed to bear witness the amount of information being processed within the schedule we have upheld.

This past week I did something that I never thought I would do with Musicians’ Desk Reference — I printed it out! Well, part of it at least. I was simply amazed at the amount of pages and text that printed, so much that I had to refill the printer several times with new reams of paper and even with new ink cartridges.

Through several stages of copy editing and revisions we are finally starting to show how massive this project really is. I knew somewhat early on that it was going to be a wealth of information and documentation (as demonstrated by my inability to stick to the five-page limit set by my high school teachers), but this is far beyond what I imagined.

The interesting thing about all of this — beyond the content — is the fact that the entire workload is customizable to the user. If an artist wants to check every item on a list to recall all potential information, they could be in for several nights’ worth of preparation and work. However, the opposite is also true, as we have built MDR to allow both the beginner and the full-time touring musician to grab a single doc on the go with minimal effort. Maybe I have just been staring at the same set of screens for too long, but it still seems impressive after working on it for over two years!

The rest of the month will see us continually chopping away at content and revisions, plus document sign-offs and content uploads. We are also starting to work out some specifics for the national release and promotional campaigns, which is enough excitement to keep me going like a kid on the night before Christmas morning.

Every day that this project gets closer to release, the potential impact seems to grow exponentially and that is reward enough keep us awake and help pull us through all of these longs days and late nights.

I am going to make this my shortest blog entry yet, because there is still so much work to do. Unfortunately, I have had to remove myself from much of the live music world that I enjoy so very much over the past few months. While this trend will likely continue through most of the summer for me, I hope that you all are able to get out and support the local music scene.

We are very fortunate to live in this city with all of its talent and available venues. While you may not be able to contribute as much to the music industry and independent artists around here as you would like to, a simple start is to go see a show, buy a piece of merch and tell an artist “thank you” for doing what they do. The music industry is not an easy place to find success. We are trying to create a platform that informs and eases the process, but it cannot move forward without the support and contribution from the fans.

EdenSong becomes "ArtSong" with move to Cincinnati Art Museum

EdenSong, the long-running summer concert series presented by the Queen City Balladeers, kicks off this Friday in Eden Park, but not in its usual outdoor spot at the Seasongood Pavilion.

For the 2013 series, EdenSong is moving just up the hill and indoors — inside the Cincinnati Art Museum, to be exact. The series — now dubbed ArtSong — runs every Friday through Aug. 2 and, as usual, features an excellent collection of primarily local Americana/Roots music performers.

The concerts will take place in the museum’s Fath Auditorium. Seating is more limited, so organizers advise arriving earlier than the 8 p.m. start time. Attendees are asked to enter the museum’s Dewitt entrance on the side of the building, in lieu of using the front doors.

The EdenSong concerts remain free (donations are, of course, welcome) and there is free parking on the museum grounds. This Friday's opening concert features the impressive lineup of Shiny & the Spoon, Ma Crow & the Lady Slippers, Lisa Biales, Anachrorhythms and Bob Kotz.

For the July 19 show, you can catch Ricky Nye, Wild Carrot & the Roots Band, Jim’s Red Pants, Steve Bonafel & One Iota and Ellie Fabe. The lineup for July 26 features Anna & Milovan, Red Cedars, Silver Arm, Greg Schaber and Calamity Rain. And for the Aug. 2 closer, you'll be able to see/hear The Rattlesnakin' Daddies, Bromwell-Diehl Band, the Hertz Brothers, Ann & Phil Case and John Ford.

Rootsy, surf-y Cincinnati trio releases debut album this Saturday

In the late ’70s, Punk Rock and New Wave were blossoming in New York City. But those genre tags were just a convenient labeling device, a catch-all that didn’t take into consideration all of the varied influences artists were bringing with them under that umbrella of Punk or New Wave. Bands would drag things like Rockabilly or Disco into their audio realm and craft their own new sound out of it, with barely any fans blinking an eye, let alone screaming, “That’s not Punk!”

Cincinnati trio Animal Circles bring that sort of kitchen-sink approach into their compositions, craftily blending together Surf Rock, Punk, Roots/Folk/Country sounds, Rockabilly and other styles into their own distinctive sonic smoothie. With the access people have to every type of music these days, it’s a wonder why every band doesn’t have Animal Circles’ sense of eclectic wonderment.

The band celebrates the release of its debut album, Eva Lee, Saturday at Northside Tavern. The free show also features Bloomington, Ind., rockers Thee Open Sex and local Black Sabbath tribute, Druid Piss.

Animal Circles’ variety and sense of dynamics make Eva Lee a thoroughly entertaining from start to finish. From the full-throttle burner “Brooks and Then Done,” with its speeding-out-of-control-train shuffle and rumbling Surf guitar licks (a consistent on the record) to the anxious, Jack-White-goes-to-the-beach vibe of “Squid Attack” to the vintage Country-flavored rocker “Southern Bell,” the band keeps your interest, not just with its unique ingredients, but also its strong sense of songwriting and melody.

The “Surfin’ Space Cowboy” approach has the potential to get old fast, so it’s to AC’s great credit that Eva Lee is such a consistently compelling listen. This is no novelty act.

Great homegrown songwriting on display tonight for free on Fountain Square

Tonight's free MidPoint Indie Summer concert on Fountain Square has an element of contemporary local music heritage … and lots of ear-grabbing melody.

The show is being headlined by psychodots, one of the most popular (and locally influential) original bands to ever call Cincinnati home. Check the Pop/Rock trio's website here and a clip of the ’dots performing at Redsfest in 2006 below:

Cari Clara, the long-running project of Eric Diedrichs — who now lives in Lexington, Ky., but fronted Cincy Pop/Rock faves The Simpletons in the ’00s — plays the middle slot. Check out CityBeat's review of Cari Clara's most recent release, Midnight March, here and the album's "Battle Hymn" below.

The twosome’s project, “Scroll Improvisation,” features
Hedges creating music on the fly with a mix of live and recorded
material, while Lin crafts a large “scroll drawing” on the floor.
According to the press release, “The piece will investigate the function
and history of narrative Chinese scrolls in a contemporary fashion
while exploring the idea of the western living room as a venue for
improvisational ambient and Folk music.” (Lin is a native of China.)

More from the CAC: "In the west, the living room has long
been a venue for intimate performances of music for family and friends
using inexpensive hand-held instruments. Traditional Chinese living
rooms contain a scroll featuring calligraphy and painting. Both western
acoustic music and eastern paper scrolls tell stories, reinforce family
identities and values. Scroll Improvisation investigates the
relationship of music and art, narrative quality of Chinese scrolls,
notation and recording, cultural identity and control."

Monday’s special performance begins at 8 p.m. and is free and open to the public. For more information, visit contemporaryartscenter.org.

Free MidPoint Indie Summer series presents all-Punk lineup

The free, every-Friday MidPoint Indie Summer (MPIS) series concerts at Downtown’s Fountain Square have featured some eclectic music over the past few years, everything from Bounce and Electro to Roots Rock, World music and Pop. But this Friday, the series goes where it has yet to go, presenting the very first all-Punk MPIS concert. Though Punk is known for its quick bursts of songs, it’s a mere coincidence that this Friday’s free show features four acts (as opposed to the usual three per show). The quartet of bands playing offers a nice cross-section of Greater Cincinnati’s Punk scene.

The Pop/Punk crew BoyMeetsWorld opens the concert at 8 p.m. After coming out of the gates fast (in just its first year as a band, the group won first place at the popular “battle of the bands” competition presented by Forest Park’s The Underground), the hooks-heavy BMW released its debut EP, Do What’s Best for You, this past April. (The band is performing acoustically at the Microsoft store at Kenwood Mall this Saturday at 4 p.m.)

At 8:45 p.m. The Lockland Brakes take over the MPIS stage. The punchy, melodic band just played its first show and released a three-song EP last month. But they’re far from “green,” with a lineup that includes past/present members of Situation Red, Newport Secret Six and DAAP Girls.

The excellent, raucous trio The Dopamines, which spent a chunk of its spring touring Europe, perform at 9:15 p.m. The hard-touring band has put out several excellent releases, including last year’s stellar Vices, which caused JadedPunk.com to declare, “For a bunch of goddamned drunks, The Dopamines sure can write some catchy hooks.”

Headlining the night at 10 p.m. is Loudmouth, a high-energy local five-piece that mixes power and melody in the vein of Screeching Weasel, NOFX and No Use for a Name. Loudmouth digitally released its latest effort, the eight-track Future Boredom EP, in late March.

For more on the MidPoint Indie Summer concerts — and all of the PNC Summer Music Series concerts — visit myfountainsquare.com.

Local bassist first artist announced for 2014 London Bass Guitar Show clinics

Veteran Cincinnati bass wizard Freekbass (of the band Freekbass, as well as Freekbot, the Kelly Richey Band and Headtronics) is the first Master Class leader to be announced for The London Bass Guitar Show 2014. The event (March 1-2 at the Olympia Conference Centre London) will draw some of the world's greatest bassists to London to "promote the art of bass playing to the general public." The show will showcase new bass products and gear, plus feature clinics and master classes throughout the event.

The bassist is gearing up for the next album (click here to download Freekbass' album Concentrate for free) from his eponymous band. Freekbass is working on the new album at Lexington's Shangri-La Studios with Duane Lundy, who has done work with My Morning Jacket, Ben Sollee and others. The album will reportedly feature special guests DJ Spooky, Adam Deitch (a producer/drummer who has worked with everyone from John Scofield to 50 Cent) and Steve Molitz (Particle, Headtronics).

More details about the 100-year-old OTR theater to be revealed at "Turn On" event

In honor of its 100th birthday and its forthcoming plans to renovate it into a music venue/"multi-use events hall," the owners of the Woodward Theater (1404 Main St., Over-the-Rhine) will show off the new space tomorrow at 7 p.m.

The Woodward was purchased by the owners of MOTR Pub, with help from the Cincinnati Development Fund, this past February. A grand opening seems a bit down the road still, but tomorrow's unveiling is a great first step and more information about the opening will be discussed.

"Funding of the planned $750,000 Woodward renovation project is presently being pursued with Hamilton County Development Company," the press release states. "Target opening date, operational details and benefit to the community will be discussed at the Woodward’s 100th birthday June 18 before TUESDAY’S TURN ON of the Woodward Theater’s 52 façade light bulbs at sunset!"

Directly after the "Turn On," the party moves across the street to MOTR, where nationally acclaimed Cincinnati singer/songwriter/producer/mult-instrumentalist Brian Olive will play a free show.